


sticks and stones

by LovelyAkuma



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Fluff, M/M, Self-Harm, i'll update the tags and warnings as things come up, kavinsky's going to make an appearance and he's his own warning, later on because it starts pretty angsty tbh, same with robert parrish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-02 02:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12717642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyAkuma/pseuds/LovelyAkuma
Summary: At the age of ten, Adam Parrish had realised that there wasn’t going to be a soft-spoken girl who would take his hands gently to guide him to a better world.He was surrounded by hatred: in his father’s fists, in his mother’s cold gaze, in his soulmates harsh words…So at the age of ten Adam stopped dreaming of the day a nice person would take him away and decided he didn’t need a soulmate the same way he didn’t need loving parents. He would save himself or die trying.aka another pynch soulmate au in which everything is the same except it's even angstier





	1. first impressions

**Author's Note:**

> I've been having this idea of a pynch fic since forever, and now that I'm done with uni for two months I decided to finally write it.  
> This chapter contains brief and vagues descriptions of self-harm and of child abuse. 
> 
> Please leave comments!
> 
> I'm thinking of doing a gansey/blue/henry companion piece of people are interested in it, so let me know in the commetns if you'd like that!

 

_I'm not the only kid_

_Who grew up this way_

_Surrounded by people who used to say_

_That rhyme about sticks and stones_

_As if broken bones_

_Hurt more than the names we got called_

                                                                                                             To This Day, by Shane Koyczan 

 

The rules said that everyone had a soulmate. It didn’t necessarily have to be a romantic one. There were platonic soulmates, and even soulmates who were siblings. But romantic soulmates were the more usual ones. 

Adam had known the rules even before he got his own mark: you got your mark when you were ten, they were the first words your soulmate spoke to you, and after you met them you would start feeling bits of your soulmates feelings.

When Adam was little he had spent countless nights hidden under the blankets of his tiny bed fantasising with the day he would meet his soulmate. She would probably be beautiful and caring, with soft hand that wouldn’t hurt him and a warm voice that would tell him that she loved him. He imagined running away with her to a faraway land with no fathers and no mothers and no neighbours and no teachers, a place where it was just him and his soulmate.

Adam had always been enthusiastic about the idea of soulmates.

And then he had gotten his soulmark.

On his tenth birthday he had woken up earlier just so he could strip himself down and look at his naked body in the mirror. Soulmarks weren’t in the same spot: sometimes they were on the wrist, or wrapped around the ankle; sometimes they were hidden from your sight at your back, or in the middle of your chest, where your heart beat.

Adam’s soulmark wrapped around his bony hip. Long slashes spelling hateful words.

Adam had sucked in a breath and had quickly covered up his soulmark.

At the age of ten, Adam Parrish had realised that there wasn’t going to be a soft-spoken girl who would take his hands gently to guide him to a better world.

He was surrounded by hatred: in his father’s fists, in his mother’s cold gaze, in his soulmates harsh words…

So at the age of ten Adam stopped dreaming of the day a nice person would take him away and decided he didn’t need a soulmate the same way he didn’t need loving parents. He would save himself or die trying.

For most people, their marks were a reminder that there was someone out there for them, that regardless of the struggles, there was someone who would stay by their side. To Adam, it was a reminder of the reality he would never escape.

The first time he tried to erase it he was fourteen. He tried slashing over the words with a razor. It had stung, but the tears tasted like salt and victory when the letters became illegible. The next morning, the wounds had healed completely, scarred only around the deep and perfectly traced black letters.

He screamed into a pillow, and tried hours later with a red iron. The skin around the letters was ugly and scarred the next morning, but the words were intact.

He had taken a long look at himself, naked in front of the mirror: his marred skin around the mark, those hateful words on his hip, the bruises his dad had left the night before, his small frame, his callused hands, his tired eyes…

He stared at them until he could trace the letters with his fingers with eyes closed: the high t’s, the round r’s and a’s, the way it inclined downwards as it wrapped around his hip. He took those words in like knives, he felt the stab over anad over, and he survived.

He decided to use those hateful words as fuel. He would prove his soulmate, his fater, his mother, everyone who doubted him… He would should them that he was much more than anyone betted on.

That’s how he ended up working three jobs to pay for a rich school, how he spent all his free time studying and on schoolwork, how all he seemed to do was work a future he _would_ have.

Adam Parrish would save himself.

***

It happened on a seemingly normal day. He was biking to school when he ran into an old Camaro with its hood up, and a frustrated-looking Aglionby boy. Adam recognised Richard ‘Just Gansey’ Campbell Gansey III immediately. He wasn’t difficult to recognise —he was Richard Gansey after all.

Adam would have passed by him without a second glance, but Gansey was struggling with something, which, on one hand, was a first, and, on the other hand, made Adam feel guilty of even thinking of abandoning him.

“Having trouble?” he asked, his accent carefully controlled.

Gansey looked up and Adam could swear his entire face lit up, probably in relief.

“Yes,” the boy replied. “The Pig decided to leave me stranded.”

“I could take a look at it if you want.”

“No,” Gansey replied, and Adam felt stupid. Of course someone like him wouldn’t want Adam’s dirty hands all over his beautiful relic. “I want you to teach me,” Gansey added, and Adam felt himself breathe again.

Ten minutes later, ‘The Pig’ was running, and Gansey was called Adam ‘you wonderful creature’, which Adam knew was sincere coming from him.

“Let me drive you to school,” Gansey offered. “If you’re late it would be my fault.”

Adam wanted to refuse, but he didn’t want to be late, so he agreed. He helped Gansey put the bike in the trunk and climbed on the backseat, because the passenger seat was taken by a handsome and dangerous creature with a shaved head and a massive back tattoo that peeked through his shirt.

Even though the boy didn’t even glance at Adam, Adam recognised him as Ronan Lynch, Gansey's sidekick.

“We were lucky Parrish was here to help us. Right, Lynch?” Gansey asked him.

Lynch shrugged and only supplied a “whatever”.

Gansey shot Adam an apologetic look, and Adam thought he looked a lot like a helpless mother apologising for her son’s temper tantrums at the market.

“This is Adam Parrish, Ronan,” Gansey introduced them.

Ronan turned around and looked at him for the first time ever. His eyes were blue and fierce and dangerous, a hurricane in a stormy day.

He looked at Adam with suspicious, like he wasn’t quite sure whether to trust him.

“We take Latin together,” Adam supplied with a nod.

Adam had the sudden feeling that he had said something extremely wrong. The air in the car seemed to just _stop_. He could see Gansey tensing out of the corner of his eye, but his attention was on Lynch. He looked suckerpunched for half a second, and then composed himself. Adam knew how a man looked when he was making a decision, and Ronan looked just like that. Then he looked at Adam from head to toes and then back, and smirked.

“Yeah,” he started, “aren’t you fucking trailer trash?”

Gansey stepped on the brakes and looked at Ronan horrified. “Oh my God, Ronan!” he exclaimed.

Ronan held Adam’s gaze for a couple of seconds more and then looked at Gansey. “Don’t say His name in vain,” he said, and then walked out of the car.

Gansey did’t follow, and Adam sure as hell wasn’t going to follow him either. He could feel his cheek flushed and red with shame, could feel the sting of his nails digging deep into his pals as he curled his hands into tight fists. But, most importantly, he could feel the shape of Ronan’s words curling around his hip.

_Yeah, aren’t you fucking trailer trash?_

Ronan Lynch was his soulmate, and Adam hated him.

After several seconds of awkward heavy silence, Gansey started the car again and drove slowly. Halfway there he cleared his throat, looking for something to fill the silence with.

“What do you know about Welsh kings?”


	2. richard gansey iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam and Gansey have a talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided this will be a rather long fic and I might divide the story into two fics, one from pynch's pov and the other one from sarchengsey's.   
> Also this fic is probably going to be slightly darker than the actual books, especially Ronan and K's relationship (but I'll add the tags and warnings necessary).  
> This chapter contains in the end a very vague reference to sexual abuse, and also short descriptions of parental abuse.

Gansey spent the rest of the drive to school going on about an ancient Welsh king called Glendower and how he was going to find him. He didn’t elaborate on exactly why he wanted to find Glendower, but Adam didn’t really mind.

They managed to arrive to class before the bell ringed, and Gansey took a seat next to Adam.

He asked Adam about his different jobs, and Adam could tell he was genuinely interested, when any other Aglionby boy would have smiled either mockingly or out of pity.

He could feel the stares of his classmates at the back of his head and he knew they were probably wondering how Adam Parrish had caught the attention of Richard Gansey III.

He was starting to feel uncomfortable, but, luckily, the bell saved him, and his favourite teacher walked in.

Noah Czerny, the Arts teacher, was the youngest teacher in the school —Whelk, the Latin teacher, was the same age as him but acted like a fifty-year-old, so he didn’t really count— and he seemed to be the only one who really cared about how the students were doing apart from homework and social calls. He liked painting more than drawing and his art was always weird, like his brain was going too fast for his hands to follow and the pieces ended up half-finished.

There was something about Czerny. Adam, a deeply untrusting person, felt like he could put his entire life in the hands of Noah Czerny and the young man would protect it with all his might. He didn’t know where that trust in Czerny came from, but he couldn’t even question it.

The work for the day was to sketch details. Czerny walked around the class encouraging the students with compliments, advices and thumbs up. When he got to Adam’s table, he smiled.

“This is a rather interesting turn of events,” he said. “Two of my three favourite students being friends. When did it happen?”

“Parrish saved The Pig,” Gansey replied with a smile. He sounded like he was bragging about Adam’s skills, which was insane and made Adam slightly dizzy.

“Of course he did. Where’s Ronan, by the way? He doesn’t usually miss _my_ class. I might be hurt.”

Gansey looked at Adam for a second and then back at Czerny.

“He couldn’t make it today, sir.”

Czerny made a face like every time was called _sir_ and then shook his head.

“I know what skipping class is. In any case, I hope to see him here next class.”

“I’ll let him know.”

Czerny smiled and then looked at their sketches and nodded.

“Very good work, boys,” he said, winked an eye at them and kept walking around the room.

The day continued mostly the same. Ronan didn’t show up to any class, the teachers were unconcerned, and Gansey sat next to Adam in every class, talking about this Glendower quest —which was beginning to sound quite intriguing to Adam’s ears— and not so subtly avoiding the obvious topics they should discuss.

Adam got tired of it by lunch.

“You have to stop this,” Adam said, interrupting Gansey mid-sentence.

Gansey looked at him, surprised, then looked down at his plate, as if wondering whether Adam could be upset about his way of eating peas, and then back at Adam, still surprised.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Is this an elaborate plan of matchmaking?”

Gansey blinked. He cast a quick glance at his own arm —Gansey’s arms were _always_ covered, which made Adam think that his soulmate mark was on one of them— and then back at Adam.

He cleared his throat.

“I agree that the recent… developments might make me more interested in getting to know you, Adam,” he said, his eyes firm on his. “But I took a liking on you the moment you got off your bike to help us out. I would have asked you to join us regardless of what happened inside the car.”

“Why is this so important to you?”

Gansey seemed to consider the question, as if the matter was exceptionally important. Then he got up, his peas forgotten.

“Follow me,” he said, and it sounded like a command Adam couldn’t refuse.

Gansey led him to an empty classroom and closed the door behind them.

He rolled up his sleeve. Adam saw traces of black ink and looked away. Everyone knew not to look at someone’s soulmark.

“I’ve seen Ronan’s mark,” Gansey said. “So I know what yours is. Ronan is the only person who’s seen my mark, and I’m allowing you.”

“Why?” Adam asked, turning to Gansey and making an effort to concentrate on his face.

Gansey smiled.

“Because somehow I know I can trust you.”

He extended his arm and Adam couldn’t help but look.

On the inside of Gansey’s wrist there was a line, scribbled in an ornamented and elaborate cursive. It read: _So you always knew your Glendower quest would lead to this?_

Adam opened his mouth and then closed it, not knowing exactly what to say. Then he spoke.

“That sounds oddly ominous.”

Gansey smiled. It was a complicated sort of smile, and Adam instantly knew that Gansey was hiding way too much from him, even though showing your mark was trust enough.

“I believe nothing bad will happen to you if you join us.”

“You _believe_?”

Gansey shrugged.

“We’re looking for a hundreds-years-old dormant king who might grant us a wish. I can’t promise it will be safe.”

“Or real,” Adam added.

“Or real,” Gansey agreed.

Adam didn’t know if it was real or not, but he knew amazing things would come from this. There was something magnetic about Richard Gansey, and it wasn’t about his money or his place in the world: Gansey was an amazing creature full of power and charm. Adam couldn’t help but feel a pang of pride at the thought of this boy feeling such a deep trust on him. It might have been that same pride that made him nod.

“Okay,” Adam said. “I’m in.”

Gansey smiled, wide and bright.

***

That night, Adam returned home fifteen minutes late for dinner and received a hard shove against the kitchen counter —that would probably bruise his back badly— and an order to go to bed without eating because: “If you can give yourself the luxury of arriving late to dinner you don’t need it that much”.

He shut himself in his tiny bedroom and decided to concentrate on his homework, his entire dinner reduced to a single granola bar he had found at the bottom of his school bag.

Half way through his homework, he started feeling numb and dizzy, like he was slowly drifting in a river. He managed to finish his homework but it took him almost double the time it normally did.

Still feeling vaguely dizzy, he went to bed.

There was no one in the room, but the last thing he could feel before falling asleep was the very vague and phantom touch of a pair of hands caressing his body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're liking the fic!  
> I decided to give my boy Noah the chance to have a life. He'll be sort of important in the development of this fic even if he's 10 years older than the boys and he's no longer the reason for the 'raven cycle'.  
> Please leave comments! And if you want hmu on tumblr at noahtheremembered


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